I was an early adopter of dial-up internet, and even considered starting my own ISP service. At no time were any internet services in my area priced per byte. It was always unlimited. Slow sometimes, but unlimited.

Oddly enough the government did regulate the Internet in the early years. It wasn't until the early '90s that commercial activity was allowed on the Internet. Prior to that only academic and research entities were allowed. It could be argued that the early restrictive regulations of the Internet created an incubation environment that allowed the Internet to mature and surpass the offerings by commercial providers such as CompuServe and AOL.